Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1960s. Show all posts

Friday, July 25, 2025

Friday Fun COOL CAT "See You in the Funnies"

We Love it When Comics Go  (Sorta) "Meta"...

...in this case, characters being spied upon by a comics creative with his own ulterior motive!




This never-reprinted tale from Prize's Cool Cat V9N1 (1962), written and illustrated by Jack O'Brien may confuse many readers younger than Baby Boomers (1946-1966) who don't realize the extensive variety of subcultures that existed during the 1960s.
Cool Cat's parents are beatniks.
Cool Cat himself is a hipster/slacker.
The cartoonist, though a creative, is a square, supposedly not as "artistic" as a beatnik or hipster.
Note: there are no hippies at this point.
They didn't come along for another several years.
Trivia: Though this is V9N1, it's the second of only three Cool Cat issues, none of which have ever been reprinted in any form!
The numbering was continued from Black Magic, created by Jack Kirby & Joe Simon in 1950.
Writer/artist Jack O'Brien began his comics career in 1943, doing work for everyone from Charlton to Parents Magazine Press to Dell to Harvey to Timely (Marvel's predecessor).
His first work for Prize was in 1952, and he continued freelancing for them until 1965, switching over to their b/w MAD magazine clone SICK when the four-color comic line was cancelled in 1963.
His new last work appeared in 1976.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Atomic Reading Room TALES TO ASTONISH "Voice of Fate"

...but with some interesting variations!
This story by plotter Stan Lee, writer Larry Lieber, and artist Don Heck is from Atlas' Tales to Astonish #33 (1962) and is a retelling of "Mister Black", which appeared only a couple of months earlier in Atlas' Strange Tales #93 (1962).
You'll note the protaganist is now American...but still a draft dodger.
Of course, the story omits why the Japanese would even take him in (since he had nothing of value to the government), or how he even got to Japan in the middle of World War II...
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Saturday, June 28, 2025

Space Heroine Saturdays BARBARELLA 4.1

...so let's begin the final chapter of her 1960s adventures!
Next Month:
The Fantastic Finale!
Plus some fun facts!
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Friday, June 20, 2025

Friday Fun P.S. "Guys in the Trick Suits"

During the Era of Batmania (In the 1960s)...

...mass market magazines oriented towards the over-30 crowd (who apparently had forgotten their childhoods only a decade or two earlier), sought an explanation as to the appeal of comic books to the under-30 crowd.





P.S., a short-lived magazine (only three issues) dedicated to nostalgia, brought in William F Nolan, a noted science fiction writer with numerous teleplays and short stories to his credit.
You've read his piece, written and published just after the Batman TV series debuted in January, 1966.
What do you think of his look back at his childhood during the Golden Age?
Note: A year after this, Nolan, in collaboration with George Clayton Johnson, wrote the novel Logan's Run.

Monday, June 16, 2025

Monday Mecha Madness NEUTRO "Captured by 777"

When Last We Saw Neutro...

Two American scientists had reassembled the parts of a giant automoton left in the Southwest over a century earlier by aliens for reasons unknown...for now!
However, unfriendly governments know of the robot, and seek to possess it!













We'll Never Know What Happens Next!
Written by editor D J Arneson and illustrated by Jack Sparling, Dell's Neutro #1 (1967) was meant to be an ongoing series, but never made it past the first issue.
Whether any work at all was done on a second issue is unknown!

Next Week:
Three Times the Mecha Mayhem as Combatra and Dangard Ace Join Raydeen as We Revisit the Shogun Warriors!

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Thursday, June 12, 2025

Reading Room INVINCIBLE IRON MAN "Frenzy in a Far-Flung Future!" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen...

...teleported to a future Earth where his invention, an artificial intelligence system called Cerebrus, has taken control of humanity, Tony Stark is sentenced to death by rebels who believe if they kill him before he creates Cerebrus, the future will be changed!

Before the sentence can be carried out, drones sent by the AI invade the rebels' refuge and Stark, along with Krylla (a scientist who disagreed with killing Tony), escape in the confusion.
In the ruins of a nearby museum, the duo discover an intact set of Iron Man armor which Tony's chestplate battery charges just in time...as...









The idea of Tony Stark creating an AI like Cerebrus was utilized in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, where Ultron (created in Avengers comics around the same time as this story, but by Henry [Goliath] Pym) was also devised to help mankind, but went rogue.
This never-referenced-since story from Marvel's Invincible Iron Man #5 (1968), written by Archie Godwin, penciled by George Tuska, and inked by Johnny Craig is one of several "pocket universe" stories that occurred around this time at Marvel. which didn't usually do alternate universe tales like DC's Earth-One/Earth-Two/etc. multiverse to explain contradictory continuity elements.
Of course, all that's currently gone out the window with both DC and Marvel rebooting everything on an annual basis...

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